Dr. Krugman alleges in his April 11 column that the $2.9 trillion dollars that would have to be made up by Mr. Paul Ryan’s tax cut could not easily be made up by merely closing tax loopholes because, as he writes:

“The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center puts the revenue loss from these tax cuts at $2.9 trillion over the next decade. House Republicans claim that the tax cuts can be made “revenue neutral” by “broadening the tax base” — that is, by closing loopholes and ending exemptions. But you’d need to close a lot of loopholes to close a $3 trillion gap; for example, even completely eliminating one of the biggest exemptions, the mortgage interest deduction, wouldn’t come close.”